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PUPPETS COOL!

Puppet Workshops

PUPPETS COOL! workshops take students through the lessons on a clearly laid out manner. Based on our 35 years of production industry experience, we provide measurable content with specific learning goals and success criteria. Students leave our workshops having mastered the four strands of Ontario's Media Literacy Curriculum.

PUPPETS-COOL's primary market is elementary school-aged children, JK through grade eight. The program has also been run successfully on numerous occasions for secondary school students, special needs students (and care givers), ECE educators (Seneca College) and other adult groups.

PUPPETS-COOL! targets the arts and media-oriented student, teacher and/or caregiver. Puppets are universal in their diversity and appeal, crossing all age, gender and ethnic boundaries.

PUPPETS-COOL! was designed as "the field trip that comes to you." Our workshops are self-contained and completely mobile. We supply all of the materials (including socks). There is no preparation required on behalf of the facility and clean-up is absolutely minimal. We use no sewing or gluing in the creation of our puppets.

Typically, we use classroom or libraries for our workshops. Ideally we should have a table and chair for each participant, however the program has also been run successfully on a carpeted floor.

Our workshops last two to two and 1/2 hours. We begin by answering the question, "What is a puppet?" From there, we explore different kinds of hand puppets, expand into a lesson on how to operate a hand puppet. Then we build (some really cool) hand puppets - and end our workshop with a short play.

Our PUPPETS COOL! Anti-Bullying Workshop was created at the request of an elementary school principal and with input from a child psychologist. In this workshop, students from multiple grade levels enter work together to build puppets, perform a play and look into the root causes of bullying.

TOONS! & TOONS TOO!

Animation Workshops

Participants come away from our workshops with not only a technical understanding of how to create an animated film, but also with an understanding of how to take what they've learned and go further. We encourage our students to creatively experiment and go beyond what we've taught them.

TOONS! primary market is elementary school-aged children, JK through grade eight. However, the program has been run successfully on numerous occasions for secondary school students and could be presented as a special interest program for adults.

TOONS! & TOONS TOO! targets the arts and media-oriented student, teacher or caregiver. Media and animation are universal in their diversity and appeal, crossing all age, gender and ethnic boundaries.

TOONS! & TOONS TOO! were designed as "the field trip that comes to you.". Our workshops are self-contained and completely mobile. We supply all of the equipment and materials. There is no preparation required on behalf of the facility and clean-up is absolutely minimal.

We use iPods - the same contemporary hardware and software that our kids use on a daily basis. We encourage students to continue learning after our sessions end. By showing them what can be done with equipment they already have, they are encouraged to go farther.

Our workshops last two to two and 1/2 hours. In the TOONS! and (our more advanced) TOONS TOO! workshops, we begin by looking at film and sequential art. Then we learn the basics of classical animation by drawing animation exercises. Moving on, our participants become pixilated cartoon characters and we end our workshops by exploring professional stop motion animation techniques.

In-Class Media Literacy Workshop explores screen writing, a form of creative writing in the hopes of nurturing your students’ writing interest and ability.

YEAH WRITE! primary market is elementary school-aged children, grades five through eight. However, the program has been run successfully on numerous occasions for secondary school students and could be presented as a special interest program for adults.

The hands-on full-day workshop takes students step-by-step through the creative process as they develop their own original ideas. Using video examples and class participation exercises, these ideas are nurtured into concepts which are then pitched to the respective students’ groups. From there, the selected stories are developed into 5 minute dramatic scripts and performed for the class by day’s end.

The students can later use the skills learned in the program to write plays, TV shows, movies, videos, comic books, stories, class assignments and even letters. While we can’t transform their writing in one day, we can push it forward and show them the path to better writing.

Writing still has a place in this world, and while the focus in this one-day class is on creative writing, the ripple effects will be seen in all of their written work. The program complements the Ontario Media Literacy Curriculum Guidelines and comes with workbooks, marking rubrics as well as the WALT (“We Are Learning To”) Learning Goals and Success Criteria marking checklist.

No prior Teacher or Student preparation is required for the workshop.

YEAH WRITE!

Screen Writing Workshops

Ask a group of students if they would rather listen to a lecture or work together to construct a mechanical toy, and the answer is obvious. Educators know that hands-on, interactive education is one of the best ways to captivate their students. But the tools and resources aren’t always available. Identifying this need for a high quality STE(A)M programming, PUPPETS COOL! created THE CREATURE SHOP to bring the science, technology, engineering, art/design and math curriculum into your classroom.

Designed for students in Grades four and above, THE CREATURE SHOP provides an introduction to simple machines such as pulleys, levers and gears.

Students will use pulley mechanisms to create animatronic hands, devices which are mechanically identical to those used in Hollywood’s special effects studios.

Students will experiment, using gear trains to discover the difference between idler, driver, and follower gears - as well as understand the concept of gearing up and down. They will be able to discover how gears transfer motion and help to change direction in motion.

Using Klann Linkages, we’ll discover how simple machines can be grouped together to make more complex compound machines. Using our custom built "Beast" walking-machine, students will observe how a gear train can take low (wind) energy and transfer it into high torque mechanical power.

The half-day CREATURE SHOP program complements the Ontario Media Literacy Curriculum Guidelines and comes with a marking rubric.

No prior Teacher or Student preparation is required for the workshop.

Each class (minimum 24 students) will receive one working scale-model Beast kit, to foster further exploration and discovery.

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE?

We would love to speak to you to tell you more about our programs to provide the "Best Day Ever" experience for your school, camp or event. Our programs are scalable and we do our best to accommodate special requests.

We offer programming in Toronto, York, Peel, Durham, Halton, Hamilton-Wentworth, London and Niagara regions. We are an approved vendor with a number of school boards and are a Community Resource Provider for Girl Guides of Canada.